Rams freshman running back Donnell Alexander had an extraordinary high-school career. It was extraordinary because he was worldly as a freshman, sophomore and junior, and because he wasn’t even the No. 1 guy as a senior at Blue Springs South High near Kansas City, Mo.

Blue Springs was Alexander’s third high school, and although he rushed for nearly 1,000 yards and scored 18 touchdowns in just nine games, most big-program recruiters backed off during his so-called sluggish senior year.

That partly explains why CSU was able to sign the son of Pro Football Hall of Famer Derrick Thomas, the amazing Chiefs linebacker/DE who died in 2000 just after Donnell celebrated his seventh birthday. CSU doesn’t typically recruit the Kansas City area, but Rams offensive coordinator Pat Meyer was told by a former CSU teammate from the K.C. area that Alexander was the real deal and his backup role last season should not be considered a negative. In fact, it was a perfect way for the Rams to sign a great kid with big-time BCS talent.

Meyer played for CSU in the early 1990s with linebacker Mark Smith-Sams, who currently lives in the K.C. area. Smith-Sams sent an email to Meyer about a year ago, asking him to look at Alexander, whom Smith-Sams was mentoring since the 2009 death of his “DaDa” — maternal grandfather Jack Williams. Williams was like a father to Alexander, who was an all-state RB as a sophomore and junior and finished his high-school career with more than 7,000 yards rushing and 95 TDs.

“He was highly recruited as sophomore and junior, and was one of those kids who kind of gets lost when you change schools. He falls off and you don’t follow up on him,” Meyer said Wednesday after CSU’s afternoon practice. “We just stuck with him the whole time, and once he came out here he felt real comfortable with his visit, with the coaches and the players that he met. The kid was great, the type of kid you want to recruit. All these big schools came (back) on him late, and I remember his mom calling me one night saying, ‘What do we need to do? These coaches keep calling and calling and they don’t understand.’ I said just be polite. The kid was great and never wavered.”

Some of the programs that made preliminary contact with Alexander included Alabama, Arkansas, Nebraska, Miami, Utah, Kansas State and Iowa, according to Meyer and CSU spokesman Zak Gilbert.

Alexander, who graduated with a cumulative GPA of 3.2, said he attended three high schools partly because he and his mother, Kim Alexander, wanted to be close to Jack Williams. Williams suffered a prolonged illness and was transferred to multiple treatment facilities before dying the year Derrick Thomas was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame (2009).

(Alexander said he didn’t attend his father’s posthumous Hall of Fame induction ceremony because he was traveling with a baseball team, but he was able to watch it on TV.)

I was impressed with with Alexander. I met the 18-year-old Wednesday and wrote a story about him that ran in today’s paper. He’s a well-spoken, very likable young man … who could be a freak of nature like his biological father. He’s 5-foot-11, 210-pounds and runs a 4.41-second 40-yard dash. He has a 355-pound bench press, 38-inch vertical leap and, if he doesn’t make it as a running back for CSU, he’d be happy to switch to defense. He told me he also played linebacker in high school and loves defense.

Here are some snippets of Alexander’s bio from CSU’s media guide: Led Grandview (Mo.) High School to the state semifinals in 2009, when he found the end zone 30 times, rushed for better than 1,500 yards and topped 2,000 yards from scrimmage…As a sophomore, played for two schools, Grandview and Olathe (Kan.) East, and combined for 2,700 rushing yards and 21 TDs, helping GHS to an 8-4 record and a berth in the state semifinals… Key in Grandview’s 9-3 season as a freshman in 2008, when he piled up 1,876 rushing yards and 26 TDs, helped the team to the state semifinals…A three-year captain…Also played basketball and ran track, lettering in basketball as a freshman and sophomore at Grandview…An honor-roll student, had a 3.2 GPA at the time of his signing.

Great write up! I’ve truly been enjoying the After-Natalie coverage of CSU.

Guest

Agreed, the new coverage is muuucch better haha

Father 1

I don’t know where you People are getting your information, but Donnell Alexander isn’t the son of the late great Derrick Thomas. His fathers name is Edward Leon Ewing in Kansas City Missouri. Check Child Support Records and you can verify who his Dad really is.. That family has been living a lie off the reputation of an NFL player for years to see what doors can open up for them.

Terry Frei graduated from Wheat Ridge High School in the Denver area and has degrees in history and journalism from the University of Colorado-Boulder. He worked for the Rocky Mountain News while attending CU and joined the Post staff after graduation. He has also worked at the Oregonian in Portland, Ore., and The Sporting News. His seventh book, March 1939: Before the Madness, was issued in February 2014.